Travers creates new public-to-private structure

Travers Smith Braithwaite has pioneered an innovative new deal structure in a bid to increase the amount of public-to-private transactions that get off the ground. The structure involves giving institutional shareholders in public-to-private transactions a 'carried interest' in the bidding vehicle, i.e. convertible unsecured loan stock, which is listed on AIM and can be exchanged by the original shareholder for equity. (30 October)

KLegal vows to save network in wake of KPMG separation

KLegal's UK management is pressing ahead with plans to forge a new international grouping by the end of next September when its 'divorce' from accountancy parent KPMG is finalised. The strategy aims to rebrand the network under the name of its associated Scottish firm, McGrigor Donald, by early 2004. KLegal's management, nonetheless, remains bullish. UK head, Nick Holt, told Legal Week: "We are relieved to be free of the unworkable regulatory constraints imposed as a result of the [US] Sarbanes-Oxley Act and hope to reach a situation where we can now act for KPMG clients whether they are an audit client or not." (13 November)

City firms 'get around' referral rules

Top City law firms are often asked to pay referral fees in direct breach of Law Society conduct rules, CMS Cameron McKenna partner Fiona Woolf has warned in a key Chancery Lane debate. Speaking at a Law Society council meeting last week, Woolf said that she had in the past been asked to pay for client referrals and, although she had refused, said that some firms had "got around the rules". (23 October)

Wiseman wins Law Society council due

Shell UK general counsel Richard Wiseman has won the vote to become Law Society council member for the Commerce & Industry Group, beating the group's official choice Ann Page. Wiseman will take the second in-house seat on the 100-lawyer council alongside long-standing council member Paul Gilbert following a council vote earlier this month. The role became available when Schroders general counsel Howard Trust was expelled for missing three consecutive meetings. (23 October)

Sidleys caught up in client disclosure row

Sidley Austin Brown & Wood has become the second major US law firm to be embroiled in a client disclosure row with tax regulators after being ordered to reveal privileged information by a US court. A federal court last week supported a demand by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for Sidleys to name unidentified participants in 13 tax transactions over the past seven years. The court order comes after the IRS launched a court battle earlier this year to force Dallas-based Jenkens & Gilchrist to hand over the names of 600 clients as part of a clamp down on tax shelters. (23 October)

Monti demands overhaul of Europe's legal regime

The European Union's (EU's) competition commissioner, Mario Monti (see picture above), called for the modernisation of Europe's legal practice rules during a bruising encounter with European bar leaders in Brussels last month. Monti told a summit of lawyers and other members of the liberal professions that the complex mesh of rules governing lawyers across the EU must be reformed if it was to achieve the goal of becoming the most competitive economy in the world by 2010. (23 October)

Lawyers not afraid to report on clients

Fifty-four percent of respondents to the latest Legal Week survey say they have tipped off the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) over suspect transactions. The number of lawyers reporting suspicious transactions is increasing with the profession offering wide support for such policing methods, according to the EJ Legal/Legal Week Big Question survey. (23 October)